"This much lessened my expense; and, indeed, God was so gracious, that, with the profits of my place, and some little presents made me by my kind tutor, for almost the first three years I did not put all my relations together to above £24 expense.[9] [And it has often grieved my soul to see so many young students spending their substance in extravagant living, and hereby entirely unfitting themselves for the prosecution of their proper studies.] I had not been long at the University before I found the benefit of the foundation I had laid in the country for a holy[10] life. I was quickly solicited to join in their excess of riot with several who lay in the same room. God, in answer to prayers before put up, gave me grace to withstand them; and once, in particular, it being cold, my limbs were so benumbed by sitting alone in my study, because I would not go amongst them, that I could scarce sleep all night. But I soon found the benefit of not yielding; for when they perceived they could not prevail, they let me alone as a singular, odd fellow. [9] All enclosed in brackets was omitted in the edition published by Whitefield in 1756. [10] "Religious."--Edit. 1756. ["All this while I was not fully satisfied of the sin of playing at cards and reading plays, till God, upon a fast-day, was pleased to convince me. For, taking a play to read a passage out of it to a friend, God struck my heart with such power, that I was obliged to lay it down again; and--blessed be His name!--I have not read any such book since. "Before I went to the University, I met with Mr. Law's 'Serious Call to a Devout Life,' but had not then money to purchase it. Soon after my coming up to the University, seeing a small edition of it in a friend's hand, I soon procured it. God worked powerfully upon my soul, as He has since upon many others, by that and his other excellent treatise upon 'Christian Perfection.'] "I now began to pray and sing psalms thrice every day, besides morning and evening, and to fast every Friday, and to receive the sacrament at a parish church near our college, and at the castle, where the despised Methodists used to receive once a month. "The young men so called[11] were then much talked of at Oxford. I had heard of, and loved them before I came to the University; and so strenuously defended them when I heard them reviled by the students, that they began to think that I also in time should be one of them. [11] "Because they lived by rule and method."--Edit. 1756.